Primeval Labs

"Primeval Laboratories" is a shootemup or "bullet hell" game in which you must fight sets of generated enemies. However, each generation adapts and learns from the previous one, and the enemies continue to become more difficult through this process.

The biggest feature of the game is the procedural, genetic creation of the enemies. Every stat, behavior, and weapon is coded in a genome that is manipulated by a genetic algorithm to create the subsequent generation. Hopefully you will see many interesting and amusing generations as you play!

You can export enemies to a text file in the pause menu, then share them with others or breed them from the main menu.

In theory it plays better with an XBox controller, but that's completely untested.

Have fun!

Downloads and Links

Ratings

Comments

Nice. I like the art direction, especially the soft gradients. I guess I don't see thematically how the in game art and the story/UI matches up though. Really like the opening screen and the gameplay is pretty solid.

That was a really fun game, especially for a shmup fan like myself. The only thing I will say is that I felt that the game was too easy for myself, in respect to the amount of damage that I was taking.

Really interesting evolution mechanic with the enemies. This game has much potential if you spent time working on it more.

There seem to be some very conflicting opinions on the difficulty - probably due to the random nature of the enemies :). The enemies always get harder as the rounds progress (due to the genetics), but the first round is completely random, so it could start off at any difficulty. Perhaps this is a problem.

@kevin: If it crashes on startup, do you have the XNA Framework installed? I may try to add some exception logging if others have problems.

Had a lot of trouble at first getting anything to happen before I realised I had an xbox pad plugged in - seems to cause keyboard and mouse controls to stop working which wouldn't be a problem except that the pad controls don't work - there's no way to fire and the y axis movement is inverted!

Nice fx ! The boss battle was fun, I enjoyed playing your game. I was unsure of the meaning of the product panel. I know it was bout boss habilities but didnt know how to read it. The texts add a lot to the ambient of the game.

Really well made ambiance and mood! IT would be nice to see the stats of each product, because right now, we don't really know what's happening. With the exception of the projectiles. The game goes smootly :). You're right on the theme :)

Fun concept, liked the portal reference. But the game felt way too easy, didn't feel like it became more difficult with more generations. Just start by peppering when the enemy, and then do a few rounds around while holding down the mouse button, and I felt like I always won.